My school lab has a version of Tango PCB/Schematic on the computers which the professor encourages us to just save it to our thumb drives. The problem is, they have no documentation for it and only can pass instruction by word of mouth. I'd like to be able to take it home and mess around with it but need at least a manual or tutorial. Does anyone have links to information about the software or even pdf's of the manual? I'm keeping an eye on auction sites for the software to come up and hope that their is a manual to go with it, but it's looking grim. Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks.

 

As Accel technologies bought and then abandoned Tango, it might be sort of abandonware. I would be a bit cautious, as the product has not been placed in the public domain.

My Tango PCB needs a dongle to run. Is that not the case with Schematic? It's certainly not hard to figure out as most functions are on the menu bar.

 

I'm not aware of any dongle. As far as I know, this software is in more than one lab and I haven't seen anything sticking out of the computer that isn't the usual. To clarify if we have the same version, the one in the lab is run in DOS, not in Windows and is quite old. Abandonware is the impression I got from the professor. Yes, the software looks easy enough to run for those experienced with this type of software but this is my first time with anything like this and really would benefit from a manual to read from. If I can get a physical manual, I wouldn't mind putting some effort into scanning it as a pdf for my class mates and anyone who still uses this software. If anyone is out there who has Tango and the manuals but doesn't use the software, send me a pm and I'll try to direct a couple of dollars towards your way for the benefit of all engineers and engineering students. Thanks.

 

earlier versions of tango (2 or 2.14?) do not require dongles at all.

 

Perhaps so - I have a licensed copy of Tango PCB Plus that requires a dongle to run.

By the way, I can't get it to run under XP. I have another computer running 98 that does support Tango. The program has its own video and printer drivers that do not play well with XP. It can get to be a challenge finding a display card that works in any worthwhile reso, too. The output is for old DOS printers, or no-longer supported HP printers. The output is in HPPL. You need something like a Laserjet 4 or an older Lexmark to print.

My dodge is to send the .pcb files to my XP computer and use the Circad'98 demo to read the files. I can convert to image formats, or actually print the files to a modern printer. It's a kludge, but saves thousands of dollars.

 

I haven't tried running it on a computer other than in the lab, but I over heard another student saying he got it to run on either xp or vista using dos box: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dos_Box

I haven't gotten around to this yet, but will give it a shot and see if it works. If you ever try, let us know also.

 

create a fat partition on your computer and boot into dos, either via floppy, cd-rom, or dos on hd, and then you have an old DOS machine that can run tango.

 

See comments on Tango's video and printer drivers.

 

I know this is an old thread but if I found it , others are also finding it.
I still use Tango SCH. I plot my schematics to file using HPGL. then open them with Oricale Autoview. I donot have Autoview at home only at work. I run SCH in Windows 95 and use it mainly for electrical drawings. I am in the process of obtaining backup 95 computers at 72 years old, I don't plan on changing software.
I hope this helps someone.

 

Welcome to AAC! Posting to an old thread is usually discouraged but your point about others' search is valid and may be helpful to those googlers who still use Tango and the later Autotrax.